


Reliving A Memory

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 19:28:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reliving A Memory

_Do not stand at my grave and weep._   
_I am not there. I do not sleep._

Dean had been in love with Castiel. He can admit it to himself now, when his absence is tearing at his gut, when his dreams are filled with gentle caresses from a man with gentle blue eyes. There’s no point denying it anymore.  
If only he had realised before it was too late.  
He had wanted to find him, to drag him out of that reservoir and breathe the life back into him, like he desperately wanted to believe he could. Castiel was just a vessel now, Sam had reasoned, and they had to move on.  
Like they always did, moving on.  
But Dean Winchester is a man of reasoning, and reason says that if there is no corpse, how can you be sure that they are dead?  
Because Castiel isn’t dead. He always bounces back. This time is no exception.

_I am a thousand winds that blow_   
_I am the diamond glints on snow_

Six months later, and Castiel still isn’t dead. Obviously. He’s just in heaven, or trapped somewhere and they have to find him, they have to save him, and then Dean can admit how hopelessly he’s fallen for his angel, just how Castiel once fell for him. He sees that now. How the angel did everything he could for Dean, and yet how the hunter bullied and pushed him away in return, how desperately Cas used to look at Dean before he escaped back upstairs, and how Dean laughed and insulted him, belittled his affections. Oh, Dean will tell him alright.  
Except, of course, Jimmy Novak’s empty, broken body still lies at the bottom of that lake, hollowed out and forgotten, and Castiel…  
Well Castiel just simply doesn’t exist.

_I am the sunlight on ripened grain_   
_I am the gentle autumn rain_

Except, four years later, Dean realises he does. He really does. Castiel has always been with him, and will continue to be until the day he dies. He has come to terms with his parting, and the fact that Dean will never see him again on this plane of existence, but now he _knows_ he’s not dead.  
For every thought, every moment Dean takes to relive ‘little Cas things’, he lives. He breathes in the memories and dreams that Dean remembers every day, and he’s promised to never stop remembering. When he forgets, the only person who valued Castiel, not as a weapon or a leader, but as a friend, will lose him, and that is when the angel will die.  
Not when he stops breathing, not when he was devoured by that water for one last time, but when he is forgotten.

_When you awaken in the morning’s hush_   
_I am the swift uplifting rush_   
_Of quiet birds in circled flight_   
_I am the soft stars that shine at night_

Dean is older now, and definitely wiser. Wiser than Bobby or his Dad ever got to be at this age. Dean has seen more than they have, has seen more pain and suffering than a man should ever be subjected to in his lifetime, and still he hopes.  
Dean Winchester will wait, wait until he has lived the full amount of life that Death has generously allowed him so far. Oh, he is no a fool; he won’t wish his life away and waste any breath he has left. He is living on borrowed time already, and for that he is grateful.  
But when the time comes, he will go eagerly, because for all his life, he has been waiting to tell someone three small words he has never uttered to a soul before, and he still believes he will get that opportunity yet.  
He still believes in his angel.

_Do not stand at my grave and cry._   
_I am not there._   
_I did not die._

**Author's Note:**

> The beautiful, beautiful peom is by Mary Elizabeth Frye and can be found here: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-not-stand-at-my-grave-and-weep/
> 
> I don't really know where this fic came from. I apologise.


End file.
